Mailman 3 June 2009 - Python-announce-list

Python Essential Reference, 4th Edition
by David Beazley 19 Jun '09

19 Jun '09

* * Python Essential Reference, 4th Edition * * by David Beazley I'm pleased to announce the release of the Python Essential Reference, 4th edition, soon to be appearing at a bookstore near you. More than a year in development, this edition covers Python 2.6, Python 3, and a wide variety of new library modules. Notable new features include - Greatly expanded coverage of advanced features such as generators, coroutines, context managers, decorators, metaclasses, and more. - Detailed coverage of concurrent programming including threads, the multiprocessing library, and coroutines. - A new chapter on testing, debugging, profiling, and performance optimization. - Completely revised examples and code samples appearing throughout the text. - New coverage of the database API, WSGI, ctypes, and other essential library modules. - Detailed information on Python 3 including compatibility notes, migration strategies, notable new features, and use of the 2to3 tool. If you liked previous editions of the Essential Reference, I think you will be pleased--this may be the best edition yet. Cheers, Dave

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PSF Community Awards go to Stephan Deibel & Sean Reifschneider
by David Goodger 19 Jun '09

19 Jun '09

[Also posted to the PSF blog: <http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2009/06/second-quarter-community-service-awards…>] The Foundation tries to recognize those whose assistance has been significant in its growth and development as well as its day-to-day operations. This quarter's Community Service Award winners are two particularly noteworthy examples. Stephan Deibel: Stephan was last year's outgoing chairman after four years in harness. This year Stephan has stepped down as a director, after helping to ensure that the Foundation's bylaws were reorganized. Stephan developed pythonology.com to promote Python, and his work as founder of Wingware (wingware.com) and a developer of the Wing IDE has also had a significant impact. Sean Reifschneider Sean has master-minded the PyCon networking every time it's worked, and without the support of this always helpful and reliably competent tummy.com director our conferences simply would not have been the same. Our thanks and congratulations go to both these recipients.

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TestFixtures 1.6.0 released!
by Chris Withers 18 Jun '09

18 Jun '09

Hi All, I'm pleased to announce the first advertised release of TestFixtures. This is a collection of helpers and mock objects that are useful when writing unit tests or doc tests. The modules currently included are: *Comparison* This class lets you instantiate placeholders that can be used to compared expected results with actual results where objects in the actual results do not support useful comparison. The comparision can be based just on the type of the object or on a partial set of the object's attributes, both of which are particularly handy when comparing sequences returned from tested code. *compare* A replacement for assertEquals and the failUnless(x() is True) pattern. Gives more useful differences when the arguments aren't the same, particularly for sequences and long strings. *diff* This function will compare two strings and give a unified diff of their comparison. Handy as a third parameter to unittest.TestCase.assertEquals. *generator* This function will return a generator that yields the arguments it was called with when the generator is iterated over. *LogCapture* This helper allows you to capture log messages for specified loggers in doctests. *log_capture* This decorator allows you to capture log messages for specified loggers for the duration of unittest methods. *replace* This decorator enables you to replace objects such as classes and functions for the duration of a unittest method. The replacements are removed regardless of what happens during the test. *Replacer* This helper enables you to replace objects such as classes and functions from within doctests and then restore the originals once testing is completed. *should_raise* This is a better version of assertRaises that lets you check the exception raised is not only of the correct type but also has the correct parameters. *TempDirectory* This helper will create a temporary directory for you using mkdtemp and provides a handy class method for cleaning all of these up. *tempdir* This decorator will create a temporary directory for the duration of the unit test and clear it up no matter the outcome of the test. *test_date* This is a handy class factory that returns datetime.date replacements that have a today method that gives repeatable, specifiable, testable dates. *test_datetime* This is a handy class factory that returns datetime.datetime replacements that have a now method that gives repeatable, specifiable, testable datetimes. *test_time* This is a handy replacement for time.time that gives repeatable, specifiable, testable times. *wrap* This is a generic decorator for wrapping method and function calls with a try-finally and having code executed before the try and as part of the finally. To find out more, please read here: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/testfixtures cheers, Chris -- Simplistix - Content Management, Zope & Python Consulting - http://www.simplistix.co.uk

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xlutils 1.3.2 released!
by Chris Withers 18 Jun '09

18 Jun '09

Hi All, I'm pleased to announce a new release of xlutils. This is a small collection of utilities that make use of both xlrd and xlwt to process Microsoft Excel files. The list of utilities included in this release are: xlutils.copy Tools for copying xlrd.Book objects to xlwt.Workbook objects. xlutils.display Utility functions for displaying information about xlrd-related objects in a user-friendly and safe fashion. xlutils.filter A mini framework for splitting and filtering Excel files into new Excel files. xlutils.margins Tools for finding how much of an Excel file contains useful data. xlutils.save Tools for serializing xlrd.Book objects back to Excel files. xlutils.styles Tools for working with formatting information expressed in styles. A full list of changes since the last release can be found here: http://www.simplistix.co.uk/software/python/xlutils/changes To find out more, please read here: http://www.simplistix.co.uk/software/python/xlutils In case you're not aware, xlrd and xlwt are two excellent pure-python libraries for reading and writing Excel files. They run on any platform and, likely, any implementation of Python without the need for horrific things like binding to Excel via COM and so needing a Windows machine. If you use any of xlrd, xlwt or xlutils, the following google group will be of use: http://groups.google.com.au/group/python-excel Hope some of this is of interest, I'd love to hear from anyone who ends up using it! cheers, Chris -- Simplistix - Content Management, Zope & Python Consulting - http://www.simplistix.co.uk

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Tutorial on working with Excel files in Python (without COM and cross platform!) at EuroPython 2009
by Chris Withers 18 Jun '09

18 Jun '09

Hi All, Too many people in the Python community *still* think the only way to work with Excel files in Python is using COM on Windows. To try and correct this, I'm giving a tutorial at this year's EuroPython conference in Birmingham, UK on Monday, 29th June that will cover working with Excel files in Python using the pure-python libraries xlrd, xlwt and xlutils. I'll be looking to cover: - Reading Excel Files Including extracting all the data types, formatting and working with large files. - Writing Excel Files Including formatting, many of the useful frilly extras and writing large excel files. - Modifying and Filtering Excel Files A run through of taking existing Excel files and modifying them in various ways. - Workshop for your problems I'm hoping anyone who attends will get a lot out of this! If you're planning on attending and have a particular problem you'd like to work on in this part of the tutorial, please drop me an email and I'll try and make sure I come prepared! All you need for the tutorial is a working knowledge of Excel and Python, with a laptop as an added benefit, and to be at EuroPython this year: http://www.europython.eu/ I look forward to seeing you all there! Chris -- Simplistix - Content Management, Zope & Python Consulting - http://www.simplistix.co.uk

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Announcing www.python-excel.org
by Chris Withers 18 Jun '09

18 Jun '09

Hi All, Google unfortunately has a knack of presenting prospective Python users who need to work with Excel files with information that is now really rather out of date. To try and help with this, I've setup a small website at: http://www.python-excel.org ...to try and list the latest recommended ways of working with Excel files in Python. If you work with excel files in Python, then please take a look and let me know what you think. cheers, Chris PS: If anyone reading this has a python-related blog, it might help Google if you could post a short entry about this new site. -- Simplistix - Content Management, Zope & Python Consulting - http://www.simplistix.co.uk

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bzr 1.16 released!
by Jonathan Lange 18 Jun '09

18 Jun '09

Bazaar 1.16, codename "It's yesterday in California" is released! This version of Bazaar contains the beta release of the new ``2a`` repository format, suitable for testing by fearless, advanced users. This format or an updated version of it will become the default format in Bazaar 2.0. Please read the NEWS entry before even thinking about upgrading to the new format. Also included are speedups for many operations on huge projects, a bug fix for pushing stacked new stacked branches to smart servers and the usual bevy of bug fixes and improvements. The Bazaar team is happy to announce availability of a new release of the bzr adaptive version control system. Bazaar is part of the GNU system <http://gnu.org/>. Thanks to everyone who contributed patches, suggestions, and feedback. Bazaar is now available for download from http://bazaar-vcs.org/Download as a source tarball; packages for various systems will be available soon. Changes from 1.16rc1 to 1.16final ********************************* * Fix the nested tree flag check so that upgrade from development formats to 2a can work correctly. (Jelmer Vernooij, #388727) * Automatic format upgrades triggered by default stacking policies on a 1.16rc1 (or later) smart server work again. (Andrew Bennetts, #388675) Compatibility Breaks ******************** * Display prompt on stderr (instead of stdout) when querying users so that the output of commands can be safely redirected. (Vincent Ladeuil, #376582) New Features ************ * A new repository format ``2a`` has been added. This is a beta release of the the brisbane-core (aka group-compress) project. This format now suitable for wider testing by advanced users willing to deal with some bugs. We would appreciate test reports, either positive or negative. Format 2a is substantially smaller and faster for many operations on many trees. This format or an updated version will become the default in bzr 2.0. This is a rich-root format, so this repository format can be used with bzr-svn. Bazaar branches in previous non-rich-root formats can be converted (including by merge, push and pull) to format 2a, but not vice versa. We recommend upgrading previous development formats to 2a. Upgrading to this format can take considerable time because it expands and more concisely repacks the full history. If you use stacked branches, you must upgrade the stacked branches before the stacked-on branches. (See <https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/374735>) * ``--development7-rich-root`` is a new dev format, similar to ``--dev6`` but using a Revision serializer using bencode rather than XML. (Jelmer Vernooij, John Arbash Meinel) * mail_client=claws now supports --body (and message body hooks). Also uses configured from address. (Barry Warsaw) Improvements ************ * ``--development6-rich-root`` can now stack. (Modulo some smart-server bugs with stacking and non default formats.) (John Arbash Meinel, #373455) * ``--development6-rich-root`` delays generating a delta index for the first object inserted into a group. This has a beneficial impact on ``bzr commit`` since each committed texts goes to its own group. For committing a 90MB file, it drops peak memory by about 200MB, and speeds up commit from 7s => 4s. (John Arbash Meinel) * Numerous operations are now faster for huge projects, i.e. those with a large number of files and/or a large number of revisions, particularly when the latest development format is used. These operations (and improvements on OpenOffice.org) include: * branch in a shared repository (2X faster) * branch --no-tree (100X faster) * diff (2X faster) * tags (70X faster) (Ian Clatworthy) * Pyrex version of ``bencode`` support. This provides optimized support for both encoding and decoding, and is now found at ``bzrlib.bencode``. ``bzrlib.utils.bencode`` is now deprecated. (Alexander Belchenko, Jelmer Vernooij, John Arbash Meinel) Bug Fixes ********* * Bazaar can now pass attachment files to the mutt email client. (Edwin Grubbs, #384158) * Better message in ``bzr add`` output suggesting using ``bzr ignored`` to see which files can also be added. (Jason Spashett, #76616) * ``bzr pull -r 123`` from a stacked branch on a smart server no longer fails. Also, the ``Branch.revision_history()`` API now works in the same situation. (Andrew Bennetts, #380314) * ``bzr serve`` on Windows no longer displays a traceback simply because a TCP client disconnected. (Andrew Bennetts) * Clarify the rules for locking and fallback repositories. Fix bugs in how ``RemoteRepository`` was handling fallbacks along with the ``_real_repository``. (Andrew Bennetts, John Arbash Meinel, #375496) * Fix a small bug with fetching revisions w/ ghosts into a new stacked branch. Not often triggered, because it required ghosts to be part of the fetched revisions, not in the stacked-on ancestry. (John Arbash Meinel) * Fix status and commit to work with content filtered trees, addressing numerous bad bugs with line-ending support. (Ian Clatworthy, #362030) * Fix problem of "directory not empty" when contending for a lock over sftp. (Martin Pool, #340352) * Fix rule handling so that eol is optional, not mandatory. (Ian Clatworthy, #379370) * Pushing a new stacked branch to a 1.15 smart server was broken due to a bug in the ``BzrDirFormat.initialize_ex`` smart verb. This is fixed in 1.16, but required changes to the network protocol, so the ``BzrDirFormat.initialize_ex`` verb has been removed and replaced with a corrected ``BzrDirFormat.initialize_ex_1.16`` verb. 1.15 clients will still work with a 1.16 server as they will fallback to slower (and bug-free) methods. (Jonathan Lange, Robert Collins, Andrew Bennetts, #385132) * Reconcile can now deal with text revisions that originated in revisions that are ghosts. (Jelmer Vernooij, #336749) * Support cloning of branches with ghosts in the left hand side history. (Jelmer Vernooij, #248540) * The ''bzr diff'' now catches OSError from osutils.rmtree and logs a helpful message to the trace file, unless the temp directory really was removed (which would be very strange). Since the diff operation has succeeded from the user's perspective, no output is written to stderr or stdout. (Maritza Mendez, #363837) * Translate errors received from a smart server in response to a ``BzrDirFormat.initialize`` or ``BzrDirFormat.initialize_ex`` request. This was causing tracebacks even for mundane errors like ``PermissionDenied``. (Andrew Bennetts, #381329) Documentation ************* * Added directory structure and started translation of docs in Russian. (Alexey Shtokalo, Alexander Iljin, Alexander Belchenko, Dmitry Vasiliev, Volodymyr Kotulskyi) API Changes *********** * Added osutils.parent_directories(). (Ian Clatworthy) * ``bzrlib.progress.ProgressBar``, ``ChildProgress``, ``DotsProgressBar``, ``TTYProgressBar`` and ``child_progress`` are now deprecated; use ``ui_factory.nested_progress_bar`` instead. (Martin Pool) * ``graph.StackedParentsProvider`` is now a public API, replacing ``graph._StackedParentsProvider``. The api is now considered stable and ready for external users. (Gary van der Merwe) * ``bzrlib.user_encoding`` is deprecated in favor of ``get_user_encoding``. (Alexander Belchenko) * TreeTransformBase no longer assumes that limbo is provided via disk. DiskTreeTransform now provides disk functionality. (Aaron Bentley) Internals ********* * Remove ``weave.py`` script for accessing internals of old weave-format repositories. (Martin Pool) Testing ******* * The number of cores is now correctly detected on OSX. (John Szakmeister) * The number of cores is also detected on Solaris and win32. (Vincent Ladeuil) * The number of cores is also detected on FreeBSD. (Matthew Fuller)

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cx_Logging 2.0
by Anthony Tuininga 18 Jun '09

18 Jun '09

What is cx_Logging? cx_Logging is a Python extension module which operates in a fashion similar to the logging module that ships with Python 2.3 and higher. It also has a C interface which allows applications to perform logging independently of or in tandem with Python. Where do I get it? http://cx-logging.sourceforge.net What's new? 1) Added support for Python 3.x. 2) Added support for logging Unicode strings in Python 2.x. 3) Added support for setting the encoding to use for Unicode strings when starting logging and a Python method SetEncoding() for setting it afterwards and a Python method GetEncoding() to view the value currently being used. 4) Added C methods StartLoggingEx(), StartLoggingStderrEx(), StartLoggingStdoutEx(), StartLoggingExW() and StartLoggingForPythonThreadEx() which provide exception information to the caller and (if applicable) allow the specification of whether files are reused and rotated (see documentation for more information). 5) Added Python method SetExceptionInfo() which allows specification of the base exception class, a method for creating an instance of that class and a message that will be displayed prior to the logging of exceptions of that class. 6) The Python method LogException() now returns a configured exception if one was built or passed in directly. 7) Transformed documentation to new style used in Python 2.6 and higher and enhanced the contents. 8) Added support for compiling on 64-bit Windows.

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ride tab editor 2.0
by edexter 17 Jun '09

17 Jun '09

ride tab editor 2.0 has been released. ride tab editor is a freeware multiplatform tab editor for bass, guitar and drums. included is a csound tool released under a dual license (free for non-profit the qt license in other words). to convert the drum tabs into csound scores. 1c re-released with a csound tool 2.0 moved from wxPython.wx namespace to wx namespace small changes to the menu http://dexrowem.blogspot.com/search?q=ride+tab+editor

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ANN: pdfrecycle 0.05
by Florian Diesch 17 Jun '09

17 Jun '09

I'm happy to announce pdfrecycle 0.05 Get it at http://www.florian-diesch.de/software/pdfrecycle/ pdfrecycle creates a PDF file by composing pages from other PDF files. It can add PDF bookmarks and metadata, scale, rotate and crop pages and put multiple logical pages onto each physical sheet. pdfrecycle uses a simple text file format to define the layout and what pages to include. From this input file pdfrecycle creates a LaTeX file and then runs pdflatex to produced the PDF file. With version 0.05 you can put pages of different input files on one output sheet and/or cut of parts of input pages. Florian -- <http://www.florian-diesch.de/>

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Python-announce-list June 2009